Measurements in fantasy world

[Commonmind]

Speaking to Teresa's point, I have this same mentality. If something knocks me in the jowls too early in a book I find it difficult to move past it. One of those on the list is how a writer presents modern terminology in a way that is congruous with their particular story, or even their particular genre. Every writer has their way of doing it, the same as I have chosen my own, but it seems some are better than others. That's not to say I believe my way to be any better than a writer that has had 30 years experience writing, which would be 20 more than I have to my own credit, but there are still experienced writers out their that have set themselves into a mold in which they cannot escape or simply choose not to because they feel as if their conventions are acceptable and that their readership should understand by now; woe new readers, and hope that you can move beyond those small iniquities that turn me off from a book.

 

[Culhwch]

I've never considered changing the passage of time. Measurement and distance seems more fitting a change than changing a day, week, month or a year to something else just for creativity's sake. I think the latter is too difficult an undertaking. A reader might be able to swallow a pace or a league, instead a yard or a few miles, but if you start reworking the concept of time you're going to have to make it extremely convincing and make it a part of the story; again, not changing it purely for the sake of.

I wouldn't change it purely for the sake of it. But I feel that the days of the week as we have named them are very specific to our time and to our history and mythology - Tuesday named for Tyr, Wednesday for Woden, Thursday for Thor, Friday for Frigg, Saturday for Saturn. The same goes for months (July/Julius, August/Augustus). In creating fantasy worlds we are creating them from the ground up, with its own history and mythology, and I don't think our names fit. I'm not challenging the idea of a day or week or a month or a year, mind, except varying lengths...

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

I have to agree with Culhwch about the names of days and months. Along with the ways the people in a story count the passage of time -- solar years, lunar months, weeks, seasons, seven- (or ten-, or a hundred-) year cycles, or whatever it might be -- these can tell you a lot about their history, their society, their religion, and so much more.

More, in my humble opinion, than any other kind of measurement.

(There may, of course, be mystics within a society, architects, masons, scientists, or whoever, that find meaning in all numbers, but it's the measurement of time and the way people define it that is likely to reveal the most about a culture as a whole.)

 

[Thadlerian]

I keep it metric and simple, when there's any need for it at all. After all, I "translate" whatever my characters say from their respective languages to Norwegian or English, so why not simply translate their means of measurements into something easily comprehended as well?

 

[Culhwch]

I keep it metric and simple, when there's any need for it at all. After all, I "translate" whatever my characters say from their respective languages to Norwegian or English, so why not simply translate their means of measurements into something easily comprehended as well?

By a quirk of fate and an amazing coincidence, the characters in my world speak English, so I have no need to translate. Of course, it's not called English....

 

[Commonmind]

I wouldn't change it purely for the sake of it. But I feel that the days of the week as we have named them are very specific to our time and to our history and mythology - Tuesday named for Tyr, Wednesday for Woden, Thursday for Thor, Friday for Frigg, Saturday for Saturn. The same goes for months (July/Julius, August/Augustus). In creating fantasy worlds we are creating them from the ground up, with its own history and mythology, and I don't think our names fit. I'm not challenging the idea of a day or week or a month or a year, mind, except varying lengths...

I'm simply talking about the measurement of time itself, not the naming conventions, which I agree is too rooted in our own society. I rename the months myself.